


Carrion

by sinaddict



Category: Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: AU, Multi, five things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-11-28
Updated: 2004-11-28
Packaged: 2017-10-08 08:19:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/74579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinaddict/pseuds/sinaddict
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And a kiss from the princess didn't wake her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Carrion

**Author's Note:**

> For Challenge #05 at [VeronicaMarsFic](http://community.livejournal.com/VeronicaMarsFic). Five things that happened as a result of Veronica dying instead of Lilly.

**01 // won't do no good to hold no seance**

There isn't as much blood as Lilly thinks there should be. You hear the word "murder" and think of pools of deep red drying to black, not purple and blue marks on pale skin and soft hair tangled into grass.

Veronica looks like she's daydreaming.

No, Lilly immediately corrects herself. Veronica looks like Sleeping Beauty all laid out on the grass -- so okay, the Pep Squad uniform doesn't really work for the scene, but Veronica's all fairy tale looks, anyway -- and even in death, Veronica looks pretty and delicate and peaceful. Lilly wonders if a kiss from a princess would do the same thing a kiss from a prince did in the old story.

Lilly thinks she already called 911, but really, who the hell knows?

She's not sure how long she sat beside Veronica on the grass before she finally reached out and brushed a few stray strands of hair away from her friend's face, and her fingertips still on Veronica's lips -- she's finally wearing the MAC Carnal lipstick Lilly'd been trying to convince her for weeks to go for since she thought it was too dark a shade -- and before Lilly even realizes she's doing it, she's leaning down and her lips touch against Veronica's and she can almost pretend that it's Saturday night and they're doing the girly slumber party thing like normal.

Then she hears the sirens in the distance and the illusion breaks.

Veronica's not just daydreaming.

And a kiss from the princess didn't wake her.

**02 // what's gone is gone**

Veronica's dad is not in charge of the investigation. Lilly knows why. So when he shows up at her house and she hears her Dad arguing with him because _Lilly's been through a very traumatic experience and she's already had to relive it three times for the police..._, she steps into the main foyer and says she wants to talk to the sheriff alone.

She doesn't think that Lamb guy who questioned her has a fucking clue what he's doing.

Sheriff Mars just nods when she tells him so.

"You want to know what happened," Lilly says as they sit down on the front stairs outside the door, and Veronica's dad tactfully doesn't comment on the fact she's two years short of being allowed to legally smoke the cigarette in her hand. "Do you think if I got there earlier, she'd be okay?"

"I don't know," he tells her, and she's glad he's being honest and not saying something dumb like, 'God works in mysterious ways' or 'Everything happens for a reason', because she swears if one more person says that to her, she's going to start kicking with her Jimmy Choo stilletos. "We'll never know that, Lilly. You can't go back and change what's already happened."

"She was just laying there," Lilly says softly as she stares out at the driveway and tries to focus on the patch of dirt on her car instead of the memory of Veronica. "I couldn't tell... I thought she was just looking at the stars. There were bruises on her throat."

Lilly stops herself because she knows she's not telling Veronica's dad anything he doesn't already know, and how is that helping? "What do you need to know?"

**03 // and you can't bring it back around**

Lilly's mother once told her that she'd have to kiss a lot of toads. Duncan had later added "to find a prince" after reading it in a book. On their first date, she'd figured Logan for one of the toads, but he'd taught her that making snap judgements on first impressions was a mistake because damned if he wasn't a hell of a prince in disguise.

She remembers imparting the same advice to Veronica once, before she started dating Duncan.

Logan looks over at her one night after margaritas and poolside sex and tells her calmly, gently, "Unless you loved Veronica as something more than a friend, it's time to start moving on."

She doesn't deny the first part and focuses on the part that's easier to talk about. "Don't you feel it, too?" she asks as she looks up at the cloudy night and shakes her head slightly. "Like a part of life is missing now."

"A part of life? No," Logan says, and there's no judgement in his voice but she's getting defensive with him anyway. "A part of our group, our family? Yeah. Lilly, she's gone. Nothing's gonna bring her back now."

She knows that. It annoys her that he feels the need to point out the obvious. "What's your point?"

"That I doubt she'd want you to spend almost every waking moment looking through old picture albums and listening to her favorite music and playing with her dog," Logan says bluntly, and his hand is stroking through her hair like he wants to soften the harshness of his words. "The only time you ever go out is if Duncan or I make you."

"Fine," she agrees, but only because he's Logan and she knows he's genuinely concerned about her. And he is right; she's spending too much time with Veronica's dog when she talks to it like it's a person. "I'll get out more."

**04 // illuminate what time has anchored down**

Two months after Sheriff Mars resigned from the department because of how badly they mishandled the evidence in Veronica's case, he opened a private investigation agency in a small office downtown. Lilly came in the first day with donuts as an office-warming present, answered the first phone call, and hasn't left since.

Her parents are not pleased with her choice of after-school jobs.

Luckily, Duncan talked their mother into believing it was a good idea -- Duncan's the only thing keeping the family on semi-civil terms on any given day -- and her mother stonewalled her father into letting it go. So every day after school, Lilly heads straight downtown to answer phones and type letters and occasionally act as the dumb blonde teenager when Mr. Mars needs somebody to blend in and listen to conversations somewhere.

"Afternoon, Lilly," Mr. Mars greets her as he walks in with coffee in hand while he looks over the newspaper. "Anything important happen?"

"Yeah, I messed up my manicure," she complains as she gives the smudged nail polish on her right index finger a gimlet stare and pouts.

Mr. Mars looks up from the paper, amused. "I'm sorry. Anything important with the business happen?"

"Phone messages on your desk," she waves him toward his office, still pouting over her nail. "Andy picked up your skip in El Paso and has him 'temporarily detained'," Lilly put air quotes around the words. "He said he needs to hear from you A.S.A.P. And Phil the Fire Chief called to let you know that he," she paused, lifting the carbon copy off her desk to read, "granted your wish and you only have two left."

Looking up, she raised an eyebrow at him. "I'm assuming there's a story there, but I'm not so sure I wanna hear it."

"Good, because you aren't going to," Mr. Mars picks up the phone, presumably to call Andy back. "I'm going to need reservations to El Paso--"

"Already taken care of," Lilly rolls her eyes, giving him a 'duh' look. Like she wouldn't take care of that as soon as she took the message, she thinks. "Your flight leaves at seven-thirty, and there's a rental waiting for you in El Paso."

"What kind of rental?" he asks, sounding as if he truly dreads the answer. "Because if it's another sports car--"

"Oh, you're no fun," Lilly shakes her head. "No, it's not a Mustang convertible, which, by the way, was totally billable to the company AND functioned as a tax write-off. It's a plain old boring Ford Taurus."

As Mr. Mars talks to Andy in El Paso about his skip, Lilly carefully removes the smudged polish and contemplates whether to repaint now or wait until she's sure it won't get smudged again.

"Okay, you know the drill," Mr. Mars says as he gathers his briefcase and cuffs and various other weapons. "If you have any problems, you can call my cell phone."

"Well, I sort of had a little problem with this mostly hidden stop-sign..."

"Problems with the business," Mr. Mars chuckles before turning serious. "And Lilly, don't work on any cases while I'm gone. ANY cases."

"Okay," Lilly agrees, knowing damn well she'd find a way around it. Especially if it involved the elephant in the room of Veronica's case, which neither admitted they still spent too much time obsessing over. "Don't worry so much."

**05 // honey i've gone away**

Lilly visits Veronica's grave every Friday night. Sometimes she drags Logan or Duncan or both of them with her, but mostly she goes by herself for girls time with Veronica. It's her new little ritual, like her coffee Wednesdays with Duncan and her Sunday morning brunches with Logan.

She brings fairy tales she stopped hoping for a year ago and reads them aloud, imagining all the little comments that Veronica would make if she could speak. Sometimes she doesn't bother reading them and just stretches out beside the headstone, pretending that Veronica was there with her.

_"Who needs a prince?" she'd ask Veronica. "Princes are all full of themselves and thinking they're hot stuff when they couldn't get you off with a flashlight and a map in hand."_

_Veronica would laugh and groan at the same time. "I swear, Lilly, only you."_

_"I mean, really, Veronica Mars," Lilly would turn her head to look at her friend as the moonlight surrounded both of them. "Wouldn't you rather have a princess?"_

_"A princess?"_

_"Yeah. Instead of Prince Charming riding to the rescue and demanding menial housework and blow jobs for the next sixty years, you could have a Princess that would teach you how to rescue yourself and ride off to the nearest bar for some free drinks from guys who want to watch."_

_"Well, when you put it like THAT," Veronica would grin. "Who could resist a princess instead of a prince?"_

Lilly thinks she would've made a great Princess Charming for Veronica, given the chance.

But she guesses now she'll never know.


End file.
